Community over Competition and let's Collaborate

We have all heard the saying, or something similar to the saying, “community over competition”. But what happens when you don’t know where to find your community?

We especially as females are into new territory, where we believe and know we can do anything. There are so many women entering the work force and just dominating. There are more female entrepunuers than ever before. We are making noise, that cannot be ignored.

Unfortunately, when this started to happen, some people felt that in order for them to rise and succeed, it meant that someone else had to fail. It was this thought that was going around saying that there is not enough room for more than one female in this field or area of work. For a long time, face to face we were rooting each other on, but then behind closed doors, we were telling our friends why you should not buy/support/encourage by someone.

Well, it took a while, but we finally realized, that what we were doing was just the exact opposite of what needed to be done. In fact, there was more room at the top than anyone could imagine. And guess what? It was also pretty lonely at the top, when not sharing it with someone else.

Everywhere I look now, whether it on social media, talking to friends, or just knowing someone who knows someone, there is a female who is starting their own store, business, online store, or anything else that adds owner and many more titles to their name. But I know that when I added those names to my title, I also added: marketing director, social media manager, bookkeeper, administrator, and more. Now, I had to frantically google how to be all of those things. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if I could reach out to someone who has been there, done that?

This is where we insert the term “community over competition”. Or what I like to call this is: “Back in Highschool”.

I have two businesses, and one more in the works, and when I started my first one, I looked, and looked for my community. I found a community all right, but I was not “good enough” to join that community. I did not have enough followers, my products were not as good as theirs, and the list goes on and on about why I was not allowed into that community. I kept searching, I had friends distance themselves, and refuse to support me, I had ones that I heard were rooting for me to fail. I felt like I was back in high school, being the unpopular kid. I was already the unpopular kid once, I did not want to have to go through life feeling like this again.

I struggled. I admit it, I really struggled in all aspects of life and business, and I could not find anyone to talk to who could understand what I was going through. No one likes to admit struggle, but I will always be the first to let you know that I did, and there is no shame in it! Sure I could talk to my husband, sure I could talk to my family and few friends I still had, but even though they could emphasize, they could not relate. Where was my community?

It took years for my to find my first member of my tribe! Finally! I was shouting on the inside, I was jumping on the couch yelling how happy I was! With finding these people, our creative juices were flowing, we were meeting for coffees boosting each other up. We were leaving each get together feeling so motivated. I knew this was that fire in my soul that was just getting ready to explode.

Welcome to your tribe.